We Have Lingered In The Chambers Of The Sea
by SilkenBone922
Summary: Nate/Vanessa. other pairings implied 3136 words, rating r, he nods before bending down to kiss her- this is all once upon a time.


**we have lingered in the chambers of the sea**

**gossip girl**, nate/vanessa, (other pairings implied) 3136 words, rating r, _he nods before bending down to kiss her- this is all once upon a time._

notes; this for a certain someone without whom I would have never gotten to enjoy these two- I was perfectly content to ignore them. that being said. I've developed a keen affection for them. so, no bashing and give it a try?

title from eliot

So, he watches Pretty Woman.

He watches Pretty Woman; by the time he reaches the end, there's a smile stretched out across his lips because apparently _both_ the brunettes in his life choose to model themselves after fictional prostitutes and all he can think of his how amusing Chuck would find this-

(This won't get really funny till summer in the Hamptons when he's stretched out in the back of the Duchess' limo shedding the Italian shirt she bought him and the term dramatic _irony_ finally has meaning for Nathaniel Archibald)

-but he remembers that he and Chuck aren't friends any more and talking to him about _Blair_ is the last thing he wants to do so he puts all thoughts of philandering exes and traitorous best friends out of his mind and picks up the phone.

He hasn't quite gotten the hang of this _courting_ thing, yet.

He hasn't had to woo a girl since he was six and he feels about as crippled as a bitter forty something divorcé.

Vanessa doesn't fall for his gentleman act when he spreads his arms and asks her what she'd like to do today.

She pokes her finger in the middle of his chest-"What would _you_ like to do today?"

His blue eyes widen.

He takes a moment before taking her hand.

Nate thinks that if he had to pick a part of Vanessa he loved best, he'd pick her eyes. It's a cliché, yes- but he's _Nate_, for chrissake.

(Married to that Waldorf girl for the first few centuries of his life, remember?)

He likes the way they widen and pop when he pulls off the blind fold.

(_all_ right, his school tie. He's never pretended to be suave.)

She grins.

"So- Nate Archibald likes the aquarium."

His eyes reflect the blue and so do hers. He nods before bending down to kiss her.

This is all once upon a time.

But this was _before_, see.

Before weddings and reunions and before he did the thing he always does best- take a limo to the Hamptons and join a book club.

Chuck asks him what happened over drinks at CeCe's bar.

_It was never meant to be_, he sighs, flipping back his bangs with restless fingers.

He's still thinking about her when his best friend raises a glass to toast him.

It is a truth universally acknowledged on the Upper East Side (and most of Brooklyn, too) that Nate Archibald's _problem_ is that he never knows what he wants.

_Blair, Serena, Blair, Vanessa, Catherine, Vanessa, Jenny, Vanessa, Blair- Vanessa again_.

And this is just the last two years.

In keeping with a time honored tradition of universally acknowledged things, this too is bull shit.

Nate knows what he wants.

He just can't catch a _break_.

So, the summer before college- they go to Europe together. As _friends_ of course and no one gets drunk in Vienna.

(He has a shot too many in Florence and a fortune teller was involved, but this isn't a story he's sharing, thank you very much.)

When it does happen, it happens in Spain. The rain, you see, falls mainly in the plain and (oh! Audrey and Blair and New York and-)

Her dress is damp, clinging to her lithe form and she's laughing for some bizarre and completely inexplicable reason. His heart dips low in his chest.

She notices his eyes on her, intent but she doesn't stop. Vanessa, he remembers, isn't like the other girls. She isn't self conscious to the point of awkwardness or stiffness (or _flamboyance_, Serena) but her neck drops to avoid his gaze when he shrugs off his jacket to drape it over her shoulders.

They cling to each other all the way back to the hotel, her body wound so tightly against his that by the time the door approaches there is no thought in his mind but the way her hair smells of citrus, sharp and sweet and her skin used to taste that way too.

He wonders if it still does.

It's gratifying, he thinks, that she pulls him in first.

They say good night at her door, chastely, he believes and then her fingers are curled around his tie, complaining about its presence against his mouth and then he kisses her.

Her mouth curves against his, hot and happy and he's grasping at the wet clinging fabric of her dress. It's a pretty little thing. All skin, no frills- _blue_. Just about long enough to miss the Serena van der Woodsen mark but high enough on the thighs to be something la Waldorf would never wear.

She sighs and pulls away, fingers making quick work of his shirt and her sparkling eyes scramble his thoughts-

"I'm sorry."

It's mumbled against her mouth and he waits for her response. Her lips slide over the skin of his neck in a way that makes him grip her harder.

She offers no respite to his guilt. He whispers his apology over and over, burying it deep into her skin as his lips travel over her body and still she says nothing, just gasps his name when she comes, her hips rising off the mattress with a faint whoosh.

He waits for the words till morning but all he hears is the quiet rise and fall of her breath.

It's a good three weeks.

They kiss over table tops, dance in the streets and fuck in the rain again and her laugh becomes the soundtrack of their journey. She lets him hold her hand as they stroll through the markets and he becomes accustomed to the way she sleeps at night, legs twisted through his and hands slipped under his pillow.

They make it to Paris before he asks.

"When we get back- to New York"- he bites his lips as he pauses, perfect teeth sinking into the flesh, and god, he's never been this nervous before-

She cuts him off.

"When we get back to New York, we will be at other ends of the city. Which is just as it should be."

His jaw clenches. "You don't mean that."

She smiles. It's soft and it says she's sorry. He whips his head to the side because _sorry_ isn't exactly the response he was looking for.

"So what has this whole summer even been about?" he spits out through gritted teeth.

She picks her words carefully.

"It's been fun," she draws out, slowly, "Isn't that what we've always been about? Having a good time? It's what we did last spring. Last fall. And now this summer."

He looks defeated- "Is that all we ever were to you?" and sounds so much more like an accusation and so much less like wonder, than he ever meant it to.

"Maybe not," she bites- because Vanessa always bites back- and her eyes flash with anger "But it's all we ever were to _you_. And I won't watch you walk away from me again."

She turns on her heel as she says this and they don't go home together. Their _amazing_, breathtaking summer is left in the gutter and ground beneath her feet.

-

And truth be told- she's sorry too.

Nate's hands on her body feel far too familiar and far too comfortable and she remembers the last time she was touched. Chuck's touch gave pleasure and sought it.

Nate just touches to touch.

Not because he has to or he wants to- just because he's Nate and she's Vanessa and it shouldn't feel this right for those very reasons.

She isn't one to plan ahead and if she did, she can't say she ever saw herself becoming permanently entangled with Nate but even walking away from him, she still feels like she is.

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, yes? And she certainly needs no man.

(Least of all an _Archibald_)

She was supposed to be smart- strong, independent. She was supposed to be so much more than she ends up becoming whenever she's with him.

It was only ever supposed to be a bit fun. A kiss, a couple cups of coffee, and nothing to nurse but her wounded pride when he's off chasing skirts, again.

She does not appreciate having her heart stomped on.

She doesn't like him _having_ her heart- to stomp all over it in the first place.

She likes NYU.

She likes New York and likes her courses, her professors and tries so hard not to think that even this- the most permanent and important thing in her life- is all due to _him_ and he's wonderful.

He's a pig, of course, with his indiscretions and hypocrisies and she's always been able to see right through them but he's _wonderful_, too, because he's him.

And part of being him, part of being Nate Archibald- means driving her to the SAT center just because he thinks she can do it.

Just because he knows he's right and it's annoying as hell.

She thinks about how much she hates him while stirring her coffee in the exact same spot where they decided to spend the summer together and she thinks about nights in Prague while Dan rambles on about the last heinous thing that Blair Waldorf did to him.

(_Glaring_, she believes. That girls a demon, all right.)

She burns that blue dress when she returns to her room and swears to never think of him again.

So, Dan has a _brother_.

Vanessa isn't sure what to do when he comes to her door, clearly distraught because apparently the famous sibling isn't dead, he's _here_ and a worse stalker than Gossip Girl.

She holds his hand while he talks and takes him out to a movie.

They are waiting in line for tickets when he kisses her and she is too stunned to move. By the time her hands find his chest to push at it firmly, the picture is already snapped.

You'd think the bitch would have stopped caring about two lowly Brooklynites by now.

Blair grabs her arm in the corridor next week, flashing a phone in front of her face, accusingly.

"What were you thinking?" cries the brunette and Vanessa really doesn't know how this is any of Blair's business.

She ventures to ask as much and Blair scoffs.

"You spent the whole summer with Nate," she states. One raised eye brow and she adds- "You hussy."

"Are you jealous?" Vanessa doesn't cut corners. She asks flat out. Frank and honest- that's her.

The girl gasps and for a moment there- Vanessa wonders if she might be slapped. Now that would be something to write home about but Blair exhibits an admirable, if somewhat disappointing amount of self restraint.

Blair's heels click clack as she walks away, darting that famous glare (Medusa, she thinks, Dan compared it to)

-over the stoop of her shoulder, tugging her purse higher up on her arm.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

It's been two months since Paris and two and half since Spain and this is the only thought in her head when she next tumbles into bed with someone.

Not that it's good or that she likes him-

(it _is_ and she _does_)

-just that it's been a while since she last had sex. A long while and this is why she's succumbing to number ten on the list of clichés she swore she'd never be.

His name is Craig. _Professor_ Craig.

He can't be much older than twenty five and he's the teaching assistant so really, it's not that bad.

(Except of course, that it's _Vanessa_ and it _is_)

She tugs on her shorts and shoots him a sweet smile when she leaves but she quits History of Film the next day.

This is a good thing, she repeats to the mirror, spreading gloss over her lips and spends the hour once marked for that class, writing poems in Central Park and pretending she can be as emo as Dan.

The boy in question is sprawled out on the grass next to her, his own ode currently stretching to ten pages (_both_ sides ) and she pulls away his ear phones.

"Hey" he yelps, body angling forward to cover the ink ridden sheets as she leans in, dangerously close to his stack of paper, lest she manage to catch a glimpse.

"Share, Humphrey," she orders, rolling her eyes when she pops the bud into one ear and is confronted with Johnny Cash's lamentations on lost love.

He flips over to his back.

"So what are you here for?"

She doesn't answer, just scrolls through his list to find something less torturous.

"Writing poems about Nate?" he jests, peering in to her Moleskine and _almost_ catching the word fish.

(So, maybe she was _trying_ to make it rhyme with Fitz. She's a creative individual, an artistic spirit.)

She kicks him in the shin, wondering if poets know the art of alliteration and how exactly it's wielded.

Dan rolls over to his back.

"Ness," he states, quietly.

Their eyes don't meet. Hers seek the grass.

His hand finds hers and they spend the rest of the afternoon in the park.

Classes can wait.

It's a quiet night in September and Blair invites them to her house for dinner. It's a fashionable party to launch Eleanor's new line and Serena's jetted off to Monte Carlo so Blair decides she could use some support from them.

Dan wears a suit and one of Rufus' ties that Vanessa is certain Eleanor gushed over at a pre wedding brunch. On the younger Humphrey, it elicits no such positive reaction and the matriarch merely glances at the boy with disdain but Dan assures Blair over appetizers that he'll always be Eleanor's favorite bitch boy.

It's a warm sudden surprise to hear the heiress's laugh tinkle to meet her friends and Vanessa realizes with a jolt that she may even count the girl as a friend.

They were always equals, she thinks- tossing boys between them like balls on a tennis court but rivals first. She remembers Blair's horror at having to share a dorm with her, the disdain with which she regarded her wardrobe (and still does. It's a Blair-picked Waldorf original on Vanessa's back tonight.) and the snarky remarks about her hair.

It's been over a year since then. They've come far. No longer enemies and she even graces their table in the corner café with her exalted presence. Mostly to listen to Dan's bad jokes and make faces at Vanessa's coffee but somewhere between the first insult and the hundredth0- something akin to _respect_ seems to have formed.

(Blair would call it tolerance, of course- _semantics_)

She shakes her head in horror. Imagine that.

She sits by Dan at dinner and there's a terribly familiar boy right across from her, toasting her with a smile that's half bitter, half shy.

She takes a bite of her filet mignon and attempts to smile back.

Apparently, things on the Upper East Side haven't changed much since she was away and it's just as unforgiving and morally bankrupt as the last time her feet touched its waters.

(She swears she never sank.)

If it's not Papa Vanderbilt stirring up trouble its Mrs. Rose with her high standards and quick assumptions and minutes after dinner; Blair is crying her eyes out, hunched up on the rose tiled floor of the powder room, her skirts spread out like the petals of a fallen flower and her tears spilling in to the shoulder of Dan's shirt.

Vanessa offers a sympathetic smile but she isn't the best at consolations and she isn't sure it's her consolations that Blair wants anyway-

(Dan's a good hugger, she remembers. And a better kisser.)

-so she braves the drinks portion of the evening on her own.

A warm pair of hands takes the punch ladle from her and she is met with Nate's warm grin when she looks up.

"Hello." And he nods.

"How's Columbia?" she ventures.

He's enthusiastic. Happy and she's glad because she's never seen him this excited- this in control. She's always wished him well.

(_Nearly_ always, anyway)

He asks about NYU. Asks after her sister and she smiles. Quickly.

(Look at us. So _civilized_)

The whole _friends_ thing sounds eerily familiar.

"I heard about you and Dan." The smile is still there but his voice is terse and of course she catches the edge.

Her mouth turns. "There is no me and Dan." And maybe the words tumble out faster than anyone thinks they should.

His wrist shakes and he spills some of the drink on the cuff of his sleeve.

Nate stands up a little straighter.

"Do you want to get out of here?" and he's not really _asking_, for once.

The punch was never worth staying for.

She agrees to walk him home because he's far too pretty to walk the streets at night on his own. Besides. It would be nice to talk.

Catch up.

"I've been thinking."

She misses a step- this is _new_.

"What you said last summer-"

And she tries to cut him off, but his finger presses against her lips. They're standing outside his brownstone now. His other hand slips into his pocket for the keys, twirling them nervously in his palm.

"You were right. They were all right. I am-" his tongue twists and fumbles- "I was a _whore_."

Her tongue pushes against the side of her mouth to stop it from curling. She knows it's not an easy word for him to get out.

"But you're not like the rest of them. None of you, were. But-"

His fingers slide down her lips and find her chin, pulling her eyes away from the asphalt to meet his.

"You're you. And I love you."

Nate Archibald stands there. He is brave and unafraid to say he loves her and to say it first. His mouth is lax, but his shoulders are arched with the firmness of a man she's never seen before.

He says it without expecting it back.

She kisses him then, hands cupping his cheeks like her kiss is a secret because he already _knows_.

The doorstep fills with light and he pulls her in, arms tugging at her waist like he wants to hold all of her at once. The cold metal of the keys nip at her back.

Standing in the empty hallway, mere moments after he lets her in-

Vanessa tells him she loves him.


End file.
